So it seems that Hillary's visit with Fox's Bill O'Reilly went just fine. Obama made it through half a relatively smooth half-hour with the network's Chris Wallace on Sunday. I know many liberals hate the idea of Democrats going on Fox because doing so lends the network credibilty as a news organization whereas the left wants to expose it as a propaganda outlet. But surely there's some value in demonstrating both to Fox's news team and it's viewers that Democrats aren't the cartoon images of themselves the network sometimes makes them out to be. There's a critical difference here, I think, between certain Democratic congressmen and pundits whose only role on the network seems to be attacking fellow Democrats or getting played for fools like the Washington Generals. But if Democrats like Clinton and Obama can make their case honestly, with fair treatment, in a way that might help to convince O'Reilly viewers--and maybe even Fox hosts themselves--that they are not, in fact, bogeymen, then there may well be a net gain for Democrats. Indeed it's possible it's Fox who's getting played by their candidate guests, not the other way around.
--Michael Crowley